
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991                   TAG: 9103050280
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

BEYER PROMISES '93 DECISION SOON

Lt. Gov. Don Beyer said he may defer to Attorney General Mary Sue Terry in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1993.

Beyer said he will decide soon whether to run for governor or seek another term as lieutenant governor. He said he is keeping his options open and that he wavers on which way he is leaning.

"To be brutally honest with you, it just depends on the hour," Beyer told The Daily Progress. "There are many reasons it looks good and other reasons it looks more problematic.

"As they say in politics, timing is everything."

Terry is considered the Democratic Party's front-runner for governor and Beyer's chief rival for the nomination if he chooses to seek it.

Beyer also said Gov. Douglas Wilder did the right thing two weeks ago when he spared the life of death row inmate Joseph Giarratano.

Beyer said there seems to be a reasonable doubt Giarratano committed the two murders he confessed to in 1979.

"If there's reasonable doubt, you don't want to put a man to death," he said. "There was just too much evidence that suggested he may not have done it."

by CNB